The Neural Correlates of the Social Perception Dysfunction in Schizophrenia: An fMRI Study

Xuezheng Gao; Zixuan Huang; Jiangjuan Li; Zhenhe Zhou; Hongliang Zhou

doi:10.2147/NDT.S425926

The Neural Correlates of the Social Perception Dysfunction in Schizophrenia: An fMRI Study

Neuropsychiatr Dis Treat. 2023 Aug 21:19:1799-1808. doi: 10.2147/NDT.S425926. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Xuezheng Gao¹, Zixuan Huang², Jiangjuan Li³, Zhenhe Zhou^{1

3}, Hongliang Zhou⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychiatry, The Affiliated Wuxi Mental Health Center of Nanjing Medical University, Wuxi City, 214151, People's Republic of China.
² Department of Music and Wellbeing, School of Music, University of Leeds, Leeds City, UK.
³ Department of Psychiatry, The Affiliated Mental Health Center of Jiangnan University, Wuxi City, 214151, People's Republic of China.
⁴ Department of Psychology, The Affiliated Hospital of Jiangnan University, Wuxi City, 214151, People's Republic of China.

Abstract

Purpose: Patients with schizophrenia show deficits in facial emotion recognition and emotional intensity assessment, and also exhibit structural and functional irregularities in specific brain regions. In this study, we aimed to examine differences in active brain regions involved in processing the Emotion Intensity Recognition Task (EIRT), which can serve as an indicator of emotion recognition and ability to perceive intensity, between patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls (HCs). The purpose of this study was to investigate dysfunctional brain regions and investigate the role of the amygdala in social cognition deficits in patients with schizophrenia by focusing on alterations in amygdala activity linked to facial emotion recognition.

Participants and methods: Twenty-two patients who met a diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia according to DSM-IV and 27 HCs participated in an MRI scan while completing the EIRT. Behavioral and MRI data were collected and analyzed.

Results: Behavioral results showed that patients with schizophrenia made significantly more errors in recognizing surprise, happiness, sadness, fear, and neutral expressions, and patients with schizophrenia exhibited significantly slower response times in recognizing happy facial expressions. Imaging results showed that schizophrenia patients found hypoactivation in several inferior parietal and temporal regions, in the cerebrum and anterior cingulate; and decreased amygdala activation in individuals with schizophrenia was associated with impaired recognition of fear in facial expressions.

Conclusion: Facial emotion processing deficits are emotion-specific (surprise, happiness, sadness, fear, and neutral expressions) in schizophrenia. Hypoactivation in several inferior parietal and temporal regions, in the cerebrum and anterior cingulate, was thought to contribute to symptom formation in schizophrenia. Reduction in amygdala activation in schizophrenia patients was associated with impairment of the fear-emotional process.

Keywords: amygdala; emotion; facial affect recognition; functional magnetic resonance imaging; schizophrenia; social cognition.

Grants and funding

This study is supported by Wuxi Municipal Health Commission Major Project (No. 202107) and Wuxi Taihu Talent Project (No. WXTTP2020008 and WXTTP 2021).